Judges 9:13 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Wine, which cheereth God and man— It has been objected, that Scripture here suggests false and unworthy notions of the Supreme Being: but we are to remember, that the words are part of a parable. In a parable, or fiction, every word or sentence is not to be interpreted with the utmost rigour, unless we are to take it to be Scripture doctrine that trees could talk. Jotham, to represent the forwardness and self-assurance of foolish persons in undertaking high things, which wiser and better men would decline, brings in a fable, setting forth how the olive-tree, the fig-tree, and the vine, and all the choice trees, had modestly refused a province not proper for them; but that the bramble, the unfittest of all, had accepted it notwithstanding, and was likely to perform accordingly. Now the words here cited are the words of the vine, and perhaps run upon a pagan hypothesis, allowable in a fable or apologue. So Castalio, Le Clerc, and others, interpret the place; and they render the words, not God and man, but gods and men, which is better. Perhaps, in such a kind of fiction, though it had a serious moral, it might be thought more decent to use the pagan style of gods and men, than to introduce the true God, either by name or implication: or Jotham, speaking to the idolatrous Shechemites, might adapt his speech to their notions, the better to be understood by them. There is another construction which some have recommended, namely, that "Wine cheereth both high and low, אלהים elohim and אנשׁים anashim, princes and peasants; or else, princes and persons of quality." This last construction is maintained by Le Clerc, and his translator Ross. But I prefer the interpretation of Le Clerc abovementioned, as being confirmed by the following ingenious remark of Bishop Warburton: "Jotham," says he, "did not mean God the governor of the universe; but all must see his meaning is, that wine cheereth hero-gods, and common men; for Jotham is here speaking to an idolatrous city, which ran a whoring after Baalim, and made Baal-berith their god: a god sprung from among men, as may partly be collected from his name, as well as from divers other circumstances of the story. This expression, which is very beautiful, contains one of the finest strokes of ridicule in the whole apologue, so much abounding with them; and insinuates to the Shechemites the vanity and pitiful original of their idolatrous gods, who were thought to be, or really had been, refreshed with wine." Div. Leg. vol. 3: p. 104.